Topic: Customizing Mandalorians

[pedro1138]

Hi Guys,

I am looking at customizing a Dredd Priest figure from the EE exclusive set. I want to remove his legs and was wondering if anyone can tell me the best way? Can I boil and pop his legs off so I can replace his belt or do I have to cut the torso open somehow? If anyone has done this before and could give me some pointers that would be great!

[spudafett]

if your just wanting to remove his legs then boiling and popping would be easiest.

however if it is the belt you are after I would boil the figure and stretch the belt off over thelegs and leave them intact.

OR you could go the much more dificult rout of cracking open the chest and removing the lower half and slipping the belt off that way.... Honestly I don't think that it'd be best if your going to use the figure for the custom.

I honestly havn't seen how the mandos in that pack are constructed, but I think boiling the whole figure and then trying to ONLY stretch and remove the belt will be your best bet for getting at it.

[pedro1138]

Thanks mate! I will give it a try and see how it turns out.

[Commander_Kurgan]

Any news on the belt removal?

[pedro1138]

I haven't tried yet. I am working with a Dredd Priest body and I can't find a single head that will fit his ball jointed neck. That and I don't have one of the belts I want to switch it with. I guess as I don't really have a clear picture of what I want to finished product to look like I haven't really gotten started.

[spudafett]

are the heads your wanting to use have sockets that are too small or too large for the neck ball?

if they are too small:
take a dremel and lightly reem it out and test fit it as you go until you get a good fit

if they are too large:
fill the socket full of hot glue and before it cools hold the ball up into the glue filled socket, let the glue cool, then trim off the excess.  If you do it right then the glue will fill in the extra space in the socket and make a new tight ball socket for the smaller ball...

[Commander_Kurgan]

The EE Mandos have bad neck posts. Few stock heads fit them well.
I'd shorten the neck post off and glue on Clonehead's resin neck ball.

You should plan your custom figure well. Otherwise it will likely not come out nice and you'll waste a good figure.
The EE Mandos are expensive anyway so you want to be sure of what you want to attain.

[pedro1138]

I think using one of cloneheads neck posts will be the way to go. Even if I could fix the ball joint to fit the neck post is usually rediculously long. I was hoping to get away with a simple parts swap but looks like I'm going to have to go the whole hog. Its a shame Karen Traviss picked Dredd Priest to be the bad guy I really like his armour and wouldn't worry about a head swap if it weren't for that. I was thinking that it would be cool to swap out his legs with that of Mij Gilamar so he has a complete set of armour and maybe give him a better belt. I could always do the legs and just leave the head and do a 501st version of Dredd Priest. The tricky part would be the death watch symbol.

[pedro1138]

Quick update, I tried using the boil and pop method to get the belt off. It didn't work as the belt a piece that sits between the torso and the hip piece, so I would have to open the torso to remove it. I'm not confident I can do that without totally destroying the figure so I am going to try to pick up a spare one on ebay to do the custom on so I don't destroy more original. It just means it will take a little longer to complete and will be way more complicated than I was hoping for for my 1st SW custom but not to worry. Considering I was thinking of customising my BMF as my 1st project this isn't really that complicated.